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RIP MobileMe. Hello iCloud, SmugMug, Dropbox, Jimdo.

RIP MobileMe. Hello iCloud, SmugMug, Dropbox, Jimdo.

By David Pogue, The New York Times | Updated: 1 July 2012 16:37 IST

In 2000, Steve Jobs had an epiphany: Apple controls both ends of the connection between the Mac and Apple's Web site. As a result, he said, Apple should be able to create some pretty clever features to reward devoted Mac fans. The product of this brainstorm was iTools, a set of free services that included an e-mail account, a simple Web site-building tool (HomePage) and a virtual online "hard drive" (iDisk).

Over the years, Apple kept tinkering with the name, features and pricing of this service. In 2002, iTools became .Mac. In 2008, .Mac became MobileMe. In 2011, MobileMe became iCloud.

Actually, there was some overlap on this most recent transition. Today, the free iCloud service is up and running -- and on June 30, MobileMe will shut down forever.

MobileMe's most original feature was synchronization: wireless, automatic, seamless auto-updating of data among your gadgets. Your address book, calendars, e-mail, notes, Web bookmarks and other information were always up to date on all your machines (Macs, Windows PCs and iPhones/iPads/iPod Touches) -- and always backed up.

That's all part of iCloud now. But when MobileMe dies on June 30, three other useful features will die with it: iDisk, iWeb Publishing (one-click Web site building) and Gallery (beautiful online photo and video galleries). Apparently, Apple wants to get out of the storage business.

If you use those three features, your To Do list has just sprouted a couple of new items. First, you have to rescue your files from iDisk, iWeb Publishing and Gallery, because they'll be deleted forever on June 30. Apple has posted detailed instructions for doing that on its MobileMe Transition page.

Second, you'll probably want to find replacements for those three orphaned services.

Now, the bad news is that nothing out there is quite as slick, clean and well integrated into your Apple gadgets. But the alternatives offer a lot of choice and a lot of power. Here, for your timesaving pleasure, is a summary of the friendliest replacements. Best of all, all of them put together cost less than the $100 a year you've been paying for MobileMe.

Gallery
WHAT IT WAS Online galleries of photos and videos that you can "publish" directly from iPhoto, Aperture or your Windows PC. They can be public, hidden (visitors have to know the Web address) or password-protected. You can set them up so other people can upload photos to your albums. You can watch your MobileMe galleries on an Apple TV. No ads.

REPLACEMENT SmugMug.com.

Goodness knows, there's no shortage of online photo gallery sites. Flickr, Shutterfly, PhotoBucket, Snapfish, 5oopx, dphoto, Fotki, Picasa, PhotoShelter -- there's probably one for every man, woman and child in America. Furthermore, plenty of people are satisfied hanging their digital masterpieces on Facebook, WordPress or GooglePlus.

What's nice about SmugMug, though, is that you can post an unlimited number of photos for a flat fee ($40 a year, or $60 to post videos, too). There are no ads and no spam. You can upload photos directly from iPhoto, Photoshop, Lightroom, Picasa, Aperture, Android or iPhone. You can choose visual themes for each of your online galleries, and you can password-protect the private ones. You can share a photo on Facebook or Twitter with one click. The Pro plan lets you make money by selling your photos to your admirers online.

WHAT YOU'LL MISS The ability to view your galleries on an Apple TV. (Apple TV can show Flickr albums, but Flickr is a little ugly and complex.)

iDisk
WHAT IT WAS An online "hard drive." It appeared on your screen as though it were an actual external hard drive -- but since it was on the Internet, you could access it from any Mac or PC. It was therefore a great way to transfer big files between computers, or to keep important files available everywhere you went, or to send enormous files (too big for e-mail) to other people.

REPLACEMENT Dropbox or SkyDrive.

Like the iDisk, Dropbox and Microsoft's SkyDrive create an icon on your computer -- a folder, in this case -- whose contents are duplicated online. You put files in there, and then marvel as they show up in the identical Dropbox/SkyDrive folder on all your other Macs and PCs. (and on the company's Web site). Here again, they're always up to date, always synchronized. You never have to send, carry, transfer or back up those files.

But Dropbox and SkyDrive go much further. You can create inner folders that you share with other people whose e-mail addresses you know. You can also grab or forward your files from your iPhone or Android phone. It's all incredibly simple, reliable and beautiful.

You get 2 gigabytes of storage at no charge. Each time you refer a friend to Dropbox, you get upgraded by 500 megabytes, up to 16 gigabytes. Or you can pay a monthly fee for much greater storage.

SkyDrive's deal is far more generous: 7 gigabytes, no charge.

There are many Dropbox rivals that strike different points along the complexity curve. SugarSync has many fans, for example; it's a lot like Dropbox, but gives you more free storage (5 gigabytes), and you can designate any folder you like to be the "magic" one. Google Drive is more ambitious yet -- its Web site is the former Google Documents, where you can create and edit word processing, spreadsheet and presentation files. And it, too, starts you off with 5 gigabytes.

But if you want Apple-like simplicity and smoothness, drop in to Dropbox.

WHAT YOU'LL MISS Very little. Expanding Dropbox's storage is very expensive (the next step up from the free plan is 50 gigabytes for $100 a year), but it's dirt cheap for SkyDrive; $10 a year for 20 gigabytes (which was the old iDisk's maximum).

iWeb Publishing
WHAT IT WAS A way to create Web pages without having to know anything about creating Web sites.

Really, there were two parts to this system, and only one of them is going away on June 30. First, there was the iWeb program -- layout software for designing the pages of your site. Second, there was MobileMe the hosting service, which displayed those pages for all the Internet to see. The first was the flier; the second was the bulletin board.

On June 30, your MobileMe-hosted sites will vanish. You can still use iWeb to design Web pages; you'll just have to find a new company to host them. You can get instructions from Apple's support site (support.apple.com/kb/HT4686) on moving your existing Web pages to your newly hired hosting service, but the steps get somewhat technical.

REPLACEMENT Jimdo.

The Internet is teeming with easy, do-it-yourself Web site building services. On these Web sites, design and hosting are combined. That is, you design your Web pages by dragging elements onto a blank page -- a title, a text block, a picture, a YouTube video and so on. When everything looks good, you click Publish, and the page is now live online for your adoring fans to see.

There's even a Web site that tests and reviews them: WebsiteToolTester.com. I asked its founder, Robert Brandl, which site is the best replacement for the old iWeb Publishing system.

"Based on the criteria you gave me (price/simplicity/features)," he wrote, "I can narrow it down to Weebly and Jimdo."

He says that Weebly is easier to use and has a better free plan (a small ad appears at the bottom of every Web page). But Jimdo's design templates are better looking, and the paid plan offers more advanced features. You can even sell stuff from your Jimdo site. And to help MobileMe refugees, Jimdo offers a MobileMe transition guide.

So there you have it: Three services that are ready to step into the shoes of MobileMe's orphaned features. May they serve you long and well -- or at least until the next time Apple rejiggers its online services.

© 2012, The New York Times News Service

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